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The Progress of Liberty 



Oration delivered at the Fourth of July Municipal 

Celebration in Independence Square, 

Philadelphia, July 4th, 19 17 



By 

Ernest Laplace, M.D. 




■Sy iTanstui- 






The Progress of Liberty 



Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

You may wonder that one of my profession should 
address the citizens of Philadelphia at the shrine of Lib- 
erty on the most momentous Fourth of July since Amer- 
ican Independence was born. I have known better the 
road that leads to the hospital and the bed of sickness 
than the road that leads to the platform and the halls of 
oratory. Hence I realize that my presence is intended 
more as a compliment to our valiant and glorious ally, 
Francs, the land of my fathers, than to me, a plain 
American citizen. These history-making times and the 
day we celebrate demanded that our great President 
address you. He is detained by pressure of official 
duties. A very inadequate substitute was found in me. 
The invitation was a command. In obeying I wish to 
express my appreciation of the honor and the responsi- 
bility with so much feeling that if, overwhelmed by the 
solemnity of the occasion, I said no more, at least I may 
withdraw with gratitude on my lips and patriotism in my 
heart. 

I was born in Louisiana's Southland in those troub- 
lous days when Abraham Lincoln suffered martyrdom that 
four million human beings might throw off the shackles 
of slavery and possess Liberty, the first prerogative of 
man. For man must be free if, as we believe, he was 
created to the image of his Maker. Freedom was the 
passion of the great emancipator. He but carried out 
without fear the Heaven-born principles which the fath- 
ers of our republic first enunciated to an astounded world 
on this very spot on the original Fourth of July. Lincoln 
drank the spirit of Liberty here at the fountain-head of 
Liberty, He realized that Washington and Jefferson and 
Lafayette and Rochambeau had built well on a rock sub- 
lime and unmovable; that they had erected thereon an 



ideal of Liberty, not material and perishable, but woven 
with mystic fibres in the human heart and soul, that these 
as one might soar in a purer atmosphere and bring to man- 
kind blessings yet unknown. This could only be pos- 
sible when man, untrammeled by tyranny, slavery and 
kaiserism, would be allowed to achieve his destiny, heart 
within and God overhead. 

Our fathers came here for reasons of discontent at 
home. America, a new land unhampered by tradition, 
became the haven of those who left their native country 
because of discontent — political, religious and social. 
Here they breathed the virgin air of freedom, and when 
foreign interference attempted to curtail the freedom they 
had assumed, they symbolized their freedom under the 
inspiration of Providence in the principles of Liberty, 
and crystallized them into a doctrine by the immortal 
Declaration of Independence. It is possible that the 
present discontent of nations may some day be solved by 
a greater Declaration of Independence and Interdepend- 
ence of nations on this very spot. 

America has justly been called "Contemporaneous 
Posterity." She has blazoned the light of Liberty while 
nations had not yet awakened to its beneficent power. 
History records how the message of Independence pro- 
claimed here was heard over the whole round earth; 
how tyrants trembled and thrones tottered at the thun- 
derous tones of the message; how the mighty were taken 
from their seats and those of low degree w^ere exalted. 
All Americans effervesced with those benevolent senti- 
ments toward their fellow-men. Down these many years 
nation after nation, enlightened and impelled by the 
spirit of Liberty born here, adopted these principles and 
became republics like ours. Some retained the trappings 
and the suits of monarchy only to adorn as a frame the 
republican form of government. 

But a few months ago the most autocratic of all nations 
awoke as from a dream and, like the metamorphosis of a 
moth, shook off the chrysalis of despotism. Russia is free. 
The Hght of American Liberty has finally awakened the 

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land of the Czars. If her people out of their sorrow and 
oppression have achieved their Liberty, how much more 
readily will they with the help of Liberty achieve their 
higher destiny. 

China, herself a sphinx among nations, has been awak- 
ened from lethargy by the beneficent light of Liberty. 
Down the ages her teeming millions were unaware of 
their higher rights of citizenship. They led a stagnant 
life. They lacked the dynamic influence which the 
minds of freemen generate for their own uplift, physical, 
political and moral. Today the giant nation of Asia stirs 
herself by Liberty and in spite of renewed political 
upheavals starts on the road to her real, great destiny. 
The Teutonic empires, however, persistently refused 
the light of Liberty. Their marvelous achievements had 
made them powerful through the influence which an 
autocracy and military caste exerted upon the people. 
They were yoked and submissive and had not been 
granted the benign and elevating spirit of freedom. 

Turkey and Bulgaria through mere coercion became 
the vassals of Teutonic autocracies. The voice of Liberty 
still cried out to them. They heard but would not 
hearken. On the contrary, with the accumulation of 
forty years' nefarious preparation and the violence of 
demons, they planned to destroy Liberty in lands already 
enlightened by her beneficent influence. 

America herself, this very spot where the sonorous 
tones of the Liberty Bell first pealed the golden message — 
yes, you and I and all of us — have been ruthlessly drawn 
into the maelstrom of this horrible war to defend the 
Liberty which our fathers avowed and the world believes 
is the right heritage of man. Twenty-two nations of the 
earth are now ready to bleed unto death that Liberty 
might live as a legacy to generations yet unborn. America 
the great has joined France the brave and England the 
strong and Belgium the heroic, Russia the free, Italy the 
true and many other valiant nations in a death grapple 
for an ideal. Democracy against autocracy: one must 
kill the other: There is no place on this earth for both: 

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democracy must win or you and I must perish. It is your 
war and it is my war. It is different from what war has 
been heretofore. It is one principle against another prin- 
ciple. It behooves each one of us loyal Americans to feel 
that he must fight for the principle, not with lip service, 
but with heart and mind — helping under the wise guidance 
of our President to the best of his ability, each in his own 
way, where and how his service will prove to the greatest 
use to the common end. Three years of war have shown 
it no longer to be the work of brilliant strategists. Sci- 
ence has brought electricity, chemistry and mechanics as 
forces of the first rank in war. Without these, individual 
effort does not avail. All of us may not be at our best 
near the firing line; but each of us without exception has 
his special duty to perform no less important or glorious 
in selective conscription, since it is the best he can do to 
keep the light of Liberty from being extinguished in a 
world yearning for it. 

Now then, my friends, on this sacred place let each of 
us invoke the shades of Washington and of Lincoln to 
kindle within our hearts the sacred fires of patriotism 
which emanated from their own mighty hearts, that each 
of us may do his little best in this mighty cause. Nothing 
is so contagious as self-denial and self-sacrifice when honor 
is at stake. On the tomb of a great soldier abroad I once 
read: "Even if you lose all, remember to save your sacred 
honor." This should be our national and our individual 
motto. King Albert of Belgium, who offered the first 
stumbling-block to the invading army, stands as the 
highest exemplar to the admiration of the world of honor 
and character. By this I mean a rule of action based on 
righteousness and the courage of living up to it. This 
he did when he sacrificed his own country and his throne 
that right should resist might. Then behold Joffre, as a 
Gibraltar, arresting the flood of Teutonic invasion at the 
Marne. Behold Petain and Nivelle saying to the recoil- 
ing monstrous hordes at Verdun: "You shall not pass." 
And they did not. Behold Wilson, voicing your senti- 
ments and mine, proclaiming the message of outraged 

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America, which proved a thunderbolt to the enemy and 
a rainbow of hope and peace to the allies. Yes, what 
Thomas Jefferson once did for the United States of Amer- 
ica Woodrow Wilson is now doing for the United Nations 
of the world. He has almost defined their ** Declaration 
of Independence." America has called, and when America 
calls, humanity calls, for America is the melting-pot and 
mirror of humanity. The struggle in Europe has been 
long and desperate that Liberty and right should pre- 
vail. In this conflict it would seem that the Liberty which 
the fathers of this republic purchased with their blood can 
grow in the lands of the enemy only when their soil has 
been made fertile with American blood, as it soon will be. 
Friends, there are no English or French or Russians today 
for us. They are all our companions-in-arms of various 
tongues under the same banner, Liberty. Hence he who 
is not with all the allies today is against America, and 
America wants no traitors. 

The pan-Germanic plan constituted the immediate 
cause of this war. It was the cause of its start and it is 
the cause of its prolongation until the victory of the allies, 
and this is indispensable to the Liberty of the world. It 
is better that the ideals of American Independence here 
proclaimed should live than that you and I should live. 
Our enemy fights for a place in the sun. If there is to be 
such a place it can only be filled by Liberty enHghtening 
civilization, while Teutonic despotism is relegated to the 
darkness of barbaric ages. 

Our allies, through their envoys, have just made a 
sacred pilgrimage zo Washington's tomb at Mount Vernon 
in admiration of his unselfish patriotism and love of lib- 
erty. Washington nobly refused a continuous term of 
office as non-conducive to the best development of 
democracy. Would that all the nations of the world were 
imbued with the same spirit as Washington, that they 
might soon enjoy all the blessings of Liberty which he 
has bequeathed to us and spread the domain of democ- 
racies for the betterment of humanity! 

The Red Cross, in field and hospitals, by its mission 

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of mercy balances the crosses of grief and sorrow at home. 
It outweighs the Iron Cross of the Teutonic variety. 

In this war woman must take a significant part. In 
distress and disaster she is always a ministering angel. 
Woman has her part to play while the world in its 
unfulfilled aspiration is struggling toward the light. 
Woman wins by giving that without which man cannot 
win: her homely duties, self-sacrifice, forgiveness and, 
finally, the sublime im.molation of her maternal heart. 
Ah! her power and her influence are imponderable forces, 
but as Marshal JoflTre told me, forces other than physical 
may yet be the determining factors of victory. And 
when it comes, my friends, and Liberty has triumphed, 
what a glorious opportunity for America to show that 
Liberty possesses respect, that Liberty elevates, that 
Liberty may cast lustre on the vanquished nations and 
with the gracious benevolent smile of charity unite them 
to the new sisterhood of nations for peace. All the nations 
now at war will emerge from the struggle each purified 
of its besetting frailty, and Liberty will absolve them to 
a peace above their present understanding; a peace which 
will invite the minds of men to a higher atmosphere 
of thought, which generates the nobler impulses that 
should bind all humanity by golden threads about the 
feet of God. Then a new era will dawn upon the world; 
an era when, by the consent of the united nations, might 
will not make right, but be a latent power to be used only 
to enforce right; an era when to live and pursue happiness 
and progress will be the full portions of small as well as 
big nations — the only rule to this end being respect for 
the legitimate aims of others; and there will be but one 
aristocracy and that the aristocracy of mind and morals. 

Meanwhile America has mobilized. Her foundries, her 
shops, her factories are quickened with the spirit of war. 
In air, on land, on sea, and under sea, she executes in her 
might. She furnishes the sinews of war by billions of 
dollars. Ten millions of her bravest sons answer "Aye!" 
at her call to arms. All her intellectual resources and 
physical strength are poured into the struggle, gladly and 

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hopefully, with grim determination that the united efforts 
of right may ultimately prevail; that America and the 
world may not halt in the march of progress, and that all 
men may soon bless America and her people. 

O Liberty Bell, whose deep, sonorous tones once awoke 
a groping world to nobler thoughts for humanity and 
civilization, though silent be thy tongue, for it is material, 
thy spirit lives and can never die! May it enter even 
now into the hearts and minds of our misguided enemy, 
that he also may soon be enthralled by the rhapsodies of 
thy message! And thou. Old Glory, the emblem of man's 
highest aspirations on earth, thou who even now wavest 
over the battlefields of Europe in Liberty's cause, inspire 
us, inspire every soldier in every land with thy divine 
meaning. Standing for what thou standest, thou canst 
never be conquered. No, not even if utter exhaustion of 
all the contending nations should, under Providence, be 
the natural end of this, the greatest war of all times; in 
the wreck of nations, in the aftermath of the world's 
disaster, we will see thee, Star-spangled Banner, still there! 
And in the reconstruction of a chastened world on a higher 
plan for humanity's unhampered progress to a higher civil- 
ization, there will be but one flag and that the flag of 
Liberty, common to all nations in the brotherhood of 
freemen. But in this flag as an oriflamme of mystic light 
will be clearly discernible thy wondrous beauty, Star- 
spangled Ban?ier/ Humanity must follow thee in glorious 
expectation, as thou wingest thy flight through the ages 
" to that far-off divine event to which the whole creation 



moves. 



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